I am looking for English speaking penpals to
correspond to. I am seeking advise on where I could
post locally in Hungary. I also seek information on
local bulletin boards there. I know of Fidonet and
others, but since I don't know Hungarian, I would like
to know how to access those. If this happens to be a
listserver that I am writing to then my email address
is .
Robert Crockett

In article >, Joe Pannon
> wrote:
> In article > you write:> >> >Part of my motivation for asking this is that I'm writing a paper on> >post-Communist Hungarian political humor. If anyone has any scholarly> >references that would be a help to me please let me know of them.>> Just curious ...> What made you select Hungary?>> Joe
I was born in Hungary (although I left when I was 2) so when my class
split into groups focused on particular countries I chose Hungary.
Unfortunately most of the eastern european political humor scholarship
I've found has focused on either Russia or Poland, so I may not have
chosen the best country for the topic. :-<
myk melez
"Goodbye," said the fox. "And now here is my secret, a very simple
secret: It is only with the heart that one can see rightly; what is
essential is invisible to the eye."
www page: http://www.mps.ohio-state.edu/cgi-bin/hpp/ideology.html

Hi everybody,
I've been reading your comments on a lot of political issues, often times
it's interesting. I am writing my thesis on the return of the
communist/socialist parties in Eastern Europe from both a theoretical (is
Bernstein prevailing over Marx?) and a practical point of view. I am also
interviewing the common people in the Eastern European countries. If anyone
has any comments (either personal experience or an academic view) I would
welcome the opportunity to read his or her opinion.

Dear Drusza "AquaPooch", patient HUNGARY readers and interested s.c.m-ers,
First the best news: the official Request for Discussion period has been
started on news.groups. With this post I am writing the thread, as far as I
am concerned, is terminated on the email list; s.c.m readers please note
that further discussion is to be crossposted to news.group, and crossposting
to b.l.h is STRONGLY discouraged (due to the email gateway not conserving
proper netnews references, and disrupting the threads that belong to n.g).
For this last time let me reiterate the general rule that posters to Usenet
should refrain from crossposting with b.l.h for that causes serious
propagation problems! For example, at my site they often arrive after six
(6) full days of delay (whereas our news system may expire them seven days
after the posting date). This indicates that there may be many Usenet sites
experiencing even worse trouble receiving these (since our provider is
better connected than many others)! If you want to send your message to both
the Usenet group and the gatewayed one, email a copy to the list address
instead of using bit.listserv.hungary, PLEASE.
Now let me try briefly (really ;-)) to give my closing remarks on the
pre-RFD debate here. My goal is not to limit anything, on the contrary: to
widen the recognition of the Hungarian newsgroup on Usenet. To illustrate
the situation, the way I see it, an analogy with phone numbers stored in
Rolodex would be much better than the Infobahn (better known as superHYPEway
;-(). We can liken the Usenet namespace to rotary card-files (the ubiquitous
Rolodexes in the USA) placed next to every phone - which would correspond to
the newsreader programs themselves in this simile. If you find something you
are interested in, you dial the number and get connected - just as if you
request the group by its name you can participate. But to locate the thing
you have to look for it in the right place - Mr. Smith would most likely be
found under the letter "S", especially if your file is ready-made for you
and you cannot put cards under names of your choice. Similarly, the
Hungarian newsgroup is naturally looked up under 'hungarian' on Usenet so we
better have our Rolodex not missing a card there, or a lot of calls could
not get placed at all. After all, few people will search for 'Istvan's
country' or 'Fradi's homeland', and many may not think checking 'magyar'
either when 'hungarian' is not found!
And stretching the parable a bit further shows why putting the info into
FAQ's, posting to mailing list or repositing in archives can not be nearly
as effective as choosing the name right in the first place. The phones
represent on the order of 200,000 (yep, that's five zeros) machines carrying
Usenet news, all with group names (overwhelmingly in English) as the most
readily available identifiers. Compared to that any separately distributed
additional information is like a classified ad placed in some newspaper
("Free information of interest to Hungarians/Magyars! Send SASE") versus
the phone number right at your fingertips *and* filed under readily guessable
heading. No doubt some people would stumble upon the ad and enjoy the
benefits of what learn there - like quite a few of us had found s.c.magyar.
But limiting the exposure throws away a great part of the potential of the
medium!
Zoli , finger for the charter of s.c.h
# Wallace Sayre said, "Academic politics is the most vicious and bitter
# form of politics, because the stakes are so low." He didn't know
# Usenet: welcome to the next level. (Ron "Asbestos" Dippold)

I'll be visiting Budapest this summer and was hoping someone could
alert of points of interest in Hungary. They don't necessarily have to
be in Budapest itself. I would appreciate any sort of assitance. Thanks
in advance.
Sanjeev

Dear fellowlistmembers,
I'm glad that a new thread has begun, and maybe this contribution,
which I had been meaning to translate and send in for some time now (it
appeared in the once-a-month supplmeent to Lidove Noviny called Central
European News, in which the collaborating newspaper is Magyar Hirlap
from Hungary, Gazeta Wyborcza from Poland, and Narodna Obroda from Slovakia.)
I'm afraid it's about a month old, but I've been working hard :-(.
In a piece called "Debts brake Transformation: The unbearable
burden inherited from the socialist economies," Sa1ndor Kopa1tsy
says (I'm summarizing unless I use quotation marks):
The changeover from socialist to market economies is compli-
cated by the necessity to pay the debts of socialism. Experience
shows that debts and successful transformation don't go together
(Czechs and East Germans are the only ones who don't have to face
an unresolvable problem; the Czechs inherited almost no debt, and
the East Germans received more in aid from West Germany than all
the debt of the former socialist countries put together).
Even if their debts were simply forgiven, successful trans-
formation in Poland and Hungary would take a couple of decades,
while further east we have to talk about generations. "The ever
more rapidly approaching economic collapse threatens the dis-
integration of the economies and the danger of the rise to power
of political extremists, and finally an embittered anti-Western
attitude."
The situation gets worse: instead of admitting that they
can't carry their debt burden, these states look for new loans.
Population lives in worse economic conditions than during the
final years of socialism.
Kopa1tsy warns of threatening consequences, calling the suc-
cessful transformation of the economies of east and central
Europe the major strategic interest of both sides. "Its main and
unavoidable condition is the forgiving of the foreign debts." He
recommends a common approach of all debt-burdened former
socialist countries, demanding the forgiving of all their debts.
The reason is complicated and rests on a specific understand-
ing of the cold war and post-war developments in Europe. Basi-
cally he says that in the interests of the West, eastern and cen-
tral Europe was handed over to Stalin and the USSR so that a
threat to western Europe would exist, that would justify long-
term US involvement in Europe after the wars end. The need for
continued political and military presence gave the US "nearly
unlimited influence." He says, "the United states gained as a
result of the Soviet great-power threat many times more than the
debt, which they should now forgive those countries that it
sacrificed at the altar of its own interests at Yalta."
He goes through the debt-as-weapon explanation for the West's
eagerness to lend to east and central Europe, pointing out that
reform movements were strongest in countries (Hungary, Poland)
where debt was heaviest. It worked so well that socialism col-
lapsed before anyone was ready.
There's an apocalyptic comparison to the situation before the
Second World War; he claims the US escaped the trap of monetarism
because its own New Deal was not monetaristic; and he ends by
arguing that if east and central Europe can't tie itself to
western Europe, it will fall further behind, its democratic
institutions will collapse, and without it, Western Europe won't
be able to compete against North America or East Asia.
+++++++++++
I don't have any training in formal economics, but already as a
historian, it seems to me that certain of these assertions might
be discussable, and I wondered what anyone else thought?
And, just BTW, may I mildly second the suggestion that, if anyone
begins reading this list traffic and doesn't "find what [they]
want," that they post something to start something else rolling?
I've been associated with the list for some time, as such things
go, and it has always seemed to me that it's pretty much self-
correcting over time.
So, how about a general CALL FOR NEW TOPICS?
Sincerely,
Hugh Agnew

Something smells very faul about those basic treaties Horn is so
hellbent to sign by the 21st of this month. Is it just that Horn
improvised again with that self-imposed deadline and now painted himself
into a corner? In a situation like that, why would the other side
bother with any concessions? All they have to do is just sit it out
till the deadline. And then the fate of minorities is sealed.
Joe Pannon

I am searching for my roots. Where do I start? My dad was born in 1931 in Backa
Topola, Hungary and is now part of Yugoslavia; it was a border town pre WWII.
I have little info to go on, but if anyone has any idea where to start, please
let me
know. You can email me at . This account will close soon.
Thanks.
SN

List of forthcoming cultural events at the
Embassy of the Republic of Hungary, Washington, D.C.
I will confirm each event in due time.
March 17 Borbala Dobozy - harpsichord
March 31 Washington Music Ensemble
April 7 Lecture by Professor John Lukacs - State, nation, people
April 28 Concert by pianists Balazs Reti and Laszlo Kenez
May 26 Exhibition of metal sculptures by Janos Enyedi
June 16 Concert by pianist Laszlo Gereb and violinist Katalin Fenyo
June 30 Exhibition of ceramic sculptures by Laszlo Fekete
--
http://www.glue.umd.edu/~gotthard
email :

My church group is seeking translators for a pen-pal program which
corresponds with members of our partner church in a Hungarian-speaking
section of Romania. Anyone in the Northern New Jersey area willing to help
out please contact me via E-mail. Thanks.

Hugh Agnew writes:
>> Dear fellowlistmembers,>> I'm glad that a new thread has begun, and maybe this contribution,> which I had been meaning to translate and send in for some time now (it> appeared in the once-a-month supplmeent to Lidove Noviny called Central> European News, in which the collaborating newspaper is Magyar Hirlap> from Hungary, Gazeta Wyborcza from Poland, and Narodna Obroda from Slovakia.)
Just a small correction. The Slovak participant is SME, rather than
Narodna Obroda. NO is more or less neutral. SME is distinctly right
wing, so articles that appear under the aegis of it and the other
papers you named should be viewed in that light.
Jan George Frajkor _!_
School of Journalism, Carleton Univ. --!--
1125 Colonel By Drive |
Ottawa, Ontario /^\
Canada K1S 5B6 /^\ /^\
/
o: 613 788-7404 fax: 613 788-6690 h: 613 563-4534